The title looks like I've had copyright issues and wasn't allowed to use actual names. Ha.
Let's take a 'past dunk' (geddit?) into my favourite album of the year, Daft Punk's 'Random Access Memories'.
I have a rather large and commendable array of ways to procrastinate. One of my favourites is to let myself loose on Spotify and tell myself that music aids in studying and improves performance. There's probably some truth in that, particularly if it's a nice Beethoven piece, or maybe some Bach. Something you listen to with one eyebrow raised and your lips pursed. Anyway, I doubt this performance-enhancement applies when listening to Daft Punk's Random Access Memories. However, God loves a trier. Random Access Memories it was.
I adore this album for many reasons. Firstly, it's a fantastic documentary on pop music from the last 30-40 years. Secondly, it's so heavily garnished with jazz and funk licks that the groove thrusts your crotch and bites your lips until you realise you've had a rather massive trouser accident and the computer chair is now soaked through. This is mainly due to Nile Rogers' unparalleled ability to make any human being collapse in ecstasy simply by chonking his way through four chords on his guitar. Thirdly, and what I have come to understand as the most crucial reason for my adoration, it was the sound to the end my first year at Uni, and the beginnings of Summer.
I remember people making a massive fuss over the album before it was released. I remember people mentioning a potential leak; people I had no idea had even heard of Daft Punk going crazy over what seemed like a small and insignificant rumour. Naturally, I dismissed all of the Daft Punk hype as a phase that will pass and eventually be overtaken by something else. Then I remember listening in my car to what I thought was either an undiscovered Chic song, or some major rip-off of a Nile Rogers track. I remember reversing out of my drive and thinking: 'This is pretty damn cool. This is one of the coolest things I have ever heard'. I checked the radio station to find that it wasn't on Radio 2, as I expected, but rather Radio 1. Alarm bells rang. This is not the place for funk? This is the place for young and hip and cool people; people who buy clothes in charity shops and don't eat creatures with more than three legs or that cast a shadow. It turned out that the song was 'Get Lucky'.
I lapped it up. It played on my mind for days. Suddenly Daft Punk had become a bigger deal. They weren't some slightly washed up duo looking to pay the next mortgage payment on time. They were bringing funk back. Funk. A genre I so highly admire for its bass players, its sheer groove, and the attitude of fun and promiscuity it preaches. I had to give the album a listen.
I listened to the album. I listened to it again. And again. It was on repeat, in between Spotify adverts, permanently. At the time, Summer had emerged from its elusive hiding place and threw itself over Cardiff in a blanket of hazy evenings and cut grass. I was sat at my computer chair in Talybont Court at around 4 in the afternoon, and the Sun's heat permeated every last inch of my desk. I sat and stared out of my window, eyes familiar with the view of the white walls and windows belonging next block of flats. The window opened marginally, letting in a breath of warm, wet air, and with it the sounds of first year students crunching over the stones beneath. Sunglasses became a permanent fixture on peoples' faces, and shorts an absolute necessity to avoid death by boiling. The days were long; the Sun hung ahead indefinitely, as if strung to a tac in the sky. I listened, avoiding any consideration of writing an essay.
I listened to it all day; through the sepia tones of daylight and into the purple hues of evening. I loved it. Eventually, I sat down and worked. Listening had become an overindulgent treat, and spent any spare/break time (of which there was much) being aurally pleasured by it. Eventually, I worked myself free of the essays. They were soon packaged up and sent to the powers that be for judgement and mockery (again, of which there was much). But the times had changed. We were free. Celebrations were in order.
I remember, after having a shower, putting 'Give Life Back to Music' on. After the horrendously cheesy and over-dramatic intro, the song settled and the groove just oozed out. I was buttoning up a slightly baggy pale blue and white gingham shirt, and staring out of the window. I bobbed my head, as you do, and had the strange but not awful taste of toothpaste and cider in my mouth. A fresh smattering of aftershave stung my neck and wrists. Staring out of the window, I could see people on their travels to other flats to begin the celebration of the end of exams. The day had been hot, but the evening crept up with the cool temperature of bathwater. I had friends coming around that evening to predrink at my flat, and I was just on my way to meet them at the front door. At that moment, everything in life was absolutely amazing. Adrenaline wasn't coursing through my veins, and neither was I heavy and lazy with an alcohol-tickled brain. I was calm, happy. The night was cool, the Sun bathed everything in orange, and I had my absolutely amazing pack of friends coming around to celebrate. It was the most content I had ever felt.
Later on, whilst we drank and danced in a club, 'Get Lucky' made an appearance to the sound of cheers. The slightly awkward, out-of-sync movements of the club became unified in the same head-bob/crotch thrust combo that had taken a hold of me earlier in the evening. It was amazing, that groove. I've yet to experience another song that will have that effect on a crowded room.
In short, Random Access Memories is a collection of songs. It's some digital waves and signals being thrown into an amplifier and the signal exploded into the regurgitating resonance of paper cones. And yet, despite not being able to reach out at touch it, this collection of noises evokes some of the most powerful chemical reactions in my brain. It unlatches the memory box and releases the most fantastic memories of fantastic experiences with fantastic people.
I like the title. It sort of reflects the story I've just told. Listen to it, and those memories will come back. Random Access Memories.
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